#urb­a­nana ? a triple met­ro­pol­is?

The train jour­ney from Bo­chum-Ehren­feld to Co­logne-Ehren­feld, or from the Dortmun­der U to the NRW For­um in Düs­sel­dorf, takes less than 90 minutes. Jour­neys like these are com­pletely nor­mal for cre­at­ives liv­ing in the urb­an jungle of North Rhine-West­phalia. Let #urb­a­nana show you how to spend a week­end shop­ping, chat­ting and party­ing in the Bel­gisches Vier­tel (the Bel­gian quarter) in Co­logne, re­cu­per­at­ing on a beach on the Rhine in Düs­sel­dorf the morn­ing after and then im­mers­ing your­self in the gal­lery scene, be­fore - fi­nally - dis­cov­er­ing the new Ruhr Area on Sunday. One at­trac­tion dur­ing your trip might be the ?Zeche Zollver­ein? col­li­ery light­house, al­though this World Cul­tur­al Her­it­age site cer­tainly won?t be your last dis­cov­ery.

Urb­an­ists take note

To­geth­er with the cre­at­ive com­munity, we come up with a net­work of ideas for your buck­et list. Wheth­er it's art or design that you?re in­ter­ested in, wheth­er you are drawn to #urb­a­nana in or­der to buy fash­ion items from small stu­di­os, or want to party at more than 200 fest­ivals in North Rhine-West­phalia, we at­tempt to clear paths through the urb­an jungle, to­geth­er with our people on the ground, to take you with us to un­dis­covered ter­rit­ory - wheth­er you?re just passing through or plan to stay for the long term.

Au­then­ti­city as fet­ish

Not everything is fant­ast­ic here, and that?s not what #urb­a­nana at­tempts to por­tray. #urb­a­nana it­self can­not be au­then­t­ic, but it aims to bring you in­to con­tact with people who love and co-design their urb­an area and who can tell you in all sin­cer­ity why you should def­in­itely come back for an­oth­er vis­it. The city is their some­times ram­shackle play­ground, their build­ing site - and their pride and joy. If you would like to take a guided tour with the loc­als from #urb­a­nana, check out the sec­tion on blogs be­low.